


Believe

by Lenore



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Crack, Elves, Humor, M/M, Magic, No Sex, POV Sheriff Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Stilinski men are BAMFs, and the evil Christmas elves really don't stand a chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my [Holiday Prompt-a-Palooza](http://scribblinlenore.livejournal.com/588754.html). This is for [](http://slythhearted.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://slythhearted.dreamwidth.org/)**slythhearted** who requested: _Derek/Stiles, BAMF!Stilinskis_.

John didn't know what it said about him as a parent that Stiles had never believed in Santa. When Stiles was two, he and Marjorie had left him with a babysitter while they went out to celebrate their anniversary, and they came home to find the girl sheepishly toeing the floor, not quite able to look them in the eye.

"Um, he's a really nosy little kid?" she said, with an apologetic smile. "Sorry!"

When they looked in on Stiles, he was sound asleep, curled up around the Tonka fire truck they'd stored away in the closet to put under the tree on Christmas night.

It was the beginning of a long career of seasonal snooping. The kid was not just nosy. He was a sneak. John never actually caught him searching for his presents, but every year on Christmas Day his big, surprised expression was just a little too cartoonish to be believed.

This year, though, John was a step ahead. He'd found a foolproof hiding place, on a high, dusty shelf out in the garage where they never put anything. He'd snuck away at lunch to wrap it while Stiles was at school. Now he was elbow deep in shiny paper decorated with snowmen, congratulating himself on finally having gotten the better of his incorrigible kid.

The front door banged open. "Dad!" Stiles came to a skidding stop in the dining room doorway. "I need your help! Come on. We have to go now!"

"Why aren't you at school?" John fired off, frowning, and then he bolted up from his chair. "Are you hurt? What's wrong?" Belatedly, he thought to hide the gift behind his back.

Stiles bounced on his toes, practically vibrating out of his skin, and John made a mental note to call the doctor about adjusting his Adderall prescription. "Yeah, sorry about the skipping thing, but it's an emergency. Also for the record? That top shelf in the garage, not an awesome hiding place. Assassin's Creed III, though, very awesome. You are the best Christmas-present-giver ever. But Scott's in trouble. And Der—other people. Can we go now?"

"Not until you tell me exactly what's going on." John pulled his gun from the drawer where he'd stowed it. "And there is no 'we' in this. You're staying right here."

"I'm not letting you go alone," Stiles said, with the mulish expression he used to get as a toddler when he refused to eat his vegetables.

"I think you're a little confused about who's the parent and who's the child here." John holstered his gun and grabbed for his jacket. When he saw the worried pinch of Stiles's mouth, he added, "I'll be careful, and I'll call for backup."

Stiles shook his head emphatically. "You really don't want to do that, trust me. And it's not exactly dangerous. I don't think so anyway. It's just—I'll explain on the way. Please?" He turned on the big, pleading eyes.

John let out a heavy breath. His kid could be a manipulative little shit when he wanted to be, but—well, it did tend to work. "You stay in the car." He pointed a finger sternly.

Stiles nodded, completely unbelievably. "Great. Awesome. The only thing more awesome? If we were already on the road."

John sighed heavily. He was going to regret this. He could tell.

This opinion only grew stronger once they were actually in the car and Stiles started to explain where they were going and why.

John gripped the wheel, jaw more tightly clenched by the moment. "I thought we were clear on that whole 'just say no' situation."

Stiles threw up his hands. "I'm not on drugs! Although, frankly, sometimes I think that's a mistake. Being high might make it a little easier to deal with the fact that werewolves actually exist and giant lizard creatures and—"

"Evil Christmas elves," John finished the sentence for him.

Stiles let out his breath. "Apparently. I don't know how, but it seems they can control other magical creatures. Hence the problem."

John's eyebrows pinched together. "Wait. You said Scott was in trouble."

Stiles shifted guiltily. "Um, yeah, that's another thing I might have neglected to mention."

"That your best friend is a werewolf?" John said incredulously. "That just slipped your mind."

"Can we possibly talk about this later?" Stiles broke out the puppy-dog face. "You know, after we've sent the evil Christmas elves back to the North Pole?"

"Fine," John told him. "But that talk we're going to have later? It's going to be about how long you're grounded."

Stiles grumbled something that sounded like, "not the holiday spirit," under his breath and gave directions, and they ended up at the old plumbing parts factory that had been abandoned as long as John could remember. There was now a low hum of machinery coming from inside.

"Stay in the—" But of course Stiles was already out of the car, eyeing the building. Forget fried food. It was his kid who was going to give John a heart attack.

"Relax, Dad," Stiles said. "The elves are surly, not violent. Also, did I mention elves? They're knee high. I'm pretty sure we can hold our own."

John gave him a hard look. "We?"

Stiles grabbed him by the arm, pulling him along like an irresistible force. "Come on. We've got to rescue Scott and Der—the whole werewolf chain gang."

Hyperbole or not, it did rather describe the scene inside. Conveyor belts zipped along at high speed, carrying dolls and Christmas tree ornaments and those radio-powered robots people were fighting over in stories. A bunch of teenagers were working the line—Scott and Jackson Whittemore and the Lahey kid, a blonde girl who looked vaguely familiar and a boy John recognized as another member of Stiles's lacrosse team. None of them appeared to be there willingly.

John was beginning to wonder if there were any werewolves over the age of eighteen when he caught sight of a scowl and a leather jacket. "Is that—"

"Yeah," Stiles said, watching with a horrified expression as the Hale boy assembled festive yard signs with sayings like _Get your jingle on!_ and _Reindeer welcome here!_ "You have no idea how totally wrong that is."

The Hale boy stopped what he was doing to glare at Stiles, and suddenly an elf materialized out of—John had no idea where, actually. It snapped, "Get back to work," and Derek started putting the signs together again, looking like a really angry marionette.

John took the opportunity to size up the elf. Stiles hadn't been exaggerating when he said they were knee-high, although "surly" was perhaps an understatement. The elf glared up at them with big, rage-filled eyes, the tips of its pointy ears turning as red as tinsel.

"Look what we have here. The motor mouth. Back again so soon?" it said with a sneer directed at Stiles.

John's eyebrows shot all the way up to his hairline. "You came here before? _By yourself_?"

Stiles said in a low, tight voice, "Can we save the ecture-lay for when we get home?"

"That's a good idea. It'll give us plenty of time to discuss your ounding-gray," he said with a pointed look that meant _you'll be lucky if it's over before you to go to college_.

Stiles let out a resigned sigh.

The elf's face contorted with sarcastic glee. "And you brought your daddy with you this time. Isn't that cute?"

John squared his shoulders and let his hand settle onto his gun belt. That kind of intimidation tended to work on human perps, at least. "I'm the sheriff here, and I'm going to need you to let these people go."

The elf looked distinctly unimpressed. "Yeah, not gonna happen. I've got a very lucrative contract with Walmart and a deadline at midnight, and werewolves make the best workers. They're fast and strong and not unionized."

Stiles put his hands on his hips. "You're going to be in a lot of trouble when Santa finds out about this." He added, less certainly, "Is there actually a Santa?"

The elf snorted. "You mean the washed-up loser? Good luck dragging him away from his schnapps. People don't believe the way they used to, so Kringle's pretty much out of business these days. Nothing to do but—" He mimed tipping back a drink. "Now, if you don't mind—" He made shooing hands at them.

Scott fastened big, helpless, _don't leave me here_ eyes on John, and in the process he managed to drop the toy car he was working on with a big, reverberating clatter.

The elf yelled, his ears flapping with fury, "You! Stop being a clumsy oaf. You pay for whatever you break."

John could see Stiles go rigid all over. It had been like this ever since the first day of kindergarten. If anyone picked on Scott, they were going to get a face full of angry Stiles. And vice versa for anyone who picked on Stiles.

"Don't you threaten him!" Stiles yelled at the elf. "And you're crazy if you think we're leaving here without—" He stopped and blinked in that _eureka_ way that John had long ago learned to fear. It tended to precede things catching fire and trips to the emergency room. Stiles whispered, "Dad, they're _Christmas_ elves. You heard what they said about Santa. It's all about what people believe. That's where the magic comes from. To break their power, we have to—"

John nodded, getting the idea. "I believe there are at least a dozen OSHA violations on these premises." He looked around the factory, and, yeah, that was putting it mildly. "I'm going to have to shut this place down," he said, projecting his voice, believing every word of it. The exposed wiring alone made the building a death trap.

For a moment nothing happened, and John focused harder, taking note of a leaking pipe, what appeared to be a chemical spill in one corner, and the rusty conveyor belts that looked as if they might snap at any moment and send parts flying like shrapnel. The machinery stuttered and slowed, more and more sluggish until it shut down altogether.

More elves materialized from—John still didn't know where. "What's going on?" one of them demanded.

"You don't want to mess with us," warned the elf they'd been dealing with.

"Yeah?" Stiles shot back. "What are you going to do? We're human. Your magic doesn't work on us. You can't hurt us."

"No, but an alpha werewolf can." It snapped its fingers at the Hale boy. "Tear them to shreds."

"Oh God," Stiles said under his breath. "I really like being whole."

The Hale boy took a step toward them and then lurched to a stop, his expression twisting with effort as he resisted the elf's control.

"That's right, son. You don't have to do this," John said in his most fatherly, reassuring voice.

"Yes, you do!" the elf screeched. "Kill them! Kill them now!"

Derek took another lumbering step, still fighting it, but his face had gone bleak, as if he couldn't imagine a way this wasn't going to end in bloodshed.

"I believe in you, Derek," Stiles told him. "I believe you won't hurt us, because I know you don't want to. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I get on your nerves, but I've grown on you, admit it. And you know what it would do to me if anything happened to my dad. So, yeah, you're going to fight this, and you're going to win. My Dad and I are going to be just fine."

Derek lunged, and John managed to step in front of Stiles, but it didn't matter because Derek wasn't lunging at them. The elf flew halfway across the factory floor and crashed into a stack of bright pink Barista Barbie boxes. _Werewolves really do exist_ , John thought with the sort of shock he probably should have felt half an hour ago. Claws and glowing red eyes made it so much more real.

There was a look people got right before they snapped—John was lucky that he'd only seen it a couple of times during his career—and right now he was seeing it on Derek Hale's face. John didn't approve of violence as a general rule, but he had to admit that these elves really kind of had it coming.

"Oh, crap!" said one of them as Derek and the rest of the werewolves closed in.

"Walmart is going to be a litigious bitch about this whole breach of contract thing," said another elf.

There was a rather loud _poof_ and a puff of smoke, and when it cleared, the warehouse was empty, no elves, no Christmas merchandise, just some really pissed off werewolves and the Stilinski men.

Scott came scuffling over, looking awkward. "Hey, um, thanks for rescuing us and everything."

John gave him the once-over. "A werewolf, huh? Does your mother know about this? Because if she doesn't, I'm going to have to—"

"She knows. There was kind of, um, an outing? It was awkward?"

John narrowed his eyes at Stiles. "Am I the last one to find out about this?"

Stiles shook his head. "Dad. No. Come on. Why would you even ask that?" His innocent face was the least believable thing ever.

"Sir." The Hale boy stood surrounded by the rest of the teenagers. "We just wanted to thank you for your help." His rigid posture and hands curled into fists at his sides were a pretty good indication that this wasn't all he had on his mind, and after a pause he added, "I hope you understand. It would be dangerous if other people knew—"

John held up a hand. "Son, if there's one thing you learn working law enforcement in a small town, it's the importance of respecting people's private matters. Nobody will ever hear about this from me. But I am going to have some questions about what exactly it is that my son's gotten himself involved in, and I'm going to expect you to answer them."

" _Dad_ ," Stiles hissed in the mortified tone of a teenager convinced he could actually die of embarrassment.

Derek met John's gaze squarely and gave a nod. "Yes, sir." He turned his attention to Stiles. "That was good thinking, figuring out how to break their magic, but what have I taught you to do if a werewolf attacks?"

Stiles answered by rote as if this has been drilled into his head. "Don't run. Don't scream. Don't talk. Bare your throat and keep your eyes down and think very, very submissive thoughts. But—"

Derek crossed his arms over his chest. "And what did you do when I started to attack you?"

"Hey, that totally worked!" Stiles insisted.

Derek ignored this. "We need to go over it, _again_ , next time we train." He hesitated. "If it's okay with your father."

John needed a moment to think that over. "It's okay. I want him to know what to do if a werewolf attacks." How were these words actually coming out of his mouth? He missed his old world where things made sense and all he had to worry about were drug dealers and gangs.

It had been a day, and he was ready to be anywhere but here. Apparently everybody else felt the same way. Scott hurried off to meet Allison, and Derek herded the rest of the kids toward the door. Stiles watched him go with a look that was equal parts hope and hopelessness, the same look he'd been giving Lydia Martin since the third grade.

John was feeling bad that his poor kid had to go and get himself two impossible crushes when Derek glanced back over his shoulder. If John hadn't been a trained observer he probably would have missed it, but he was good at his job, so he saw the brief little flicker when Derek's usually stoic expression softened into something else.

Yeah, not another Lydia Martin situation then. John was going to have to figure out how he felt about that.

"Come on, kid." He draped an arm across Stiles's shoulders. "We've got a conversation about how grounded you are waiting for us at home."

"Seriously?" Stiles's voice rose incredulously. "Can't we just celebrate our glorious victory over the forces of darkness and call it a day? No? Great. Way to kill the moment."

He sulked in the car, but he'd get over it soon enough. The kid was nothing if not adaptable. John watched the road and weighed his options and decided he was as ready as he was ever going to be. "So, you and Derek Hale."

Stiles sat up like a shot. "What? No! What? There isn't any—I don't know where you got that. But you need to back away from that idea, because, seriously, that way lies madness. Sheer, utter crazy times."

"What's Derek doing for Christmas?"

Stiles slanted a confused glance at him. "I don't know. Why?"

"You should invite him over."

Stiles's mouth worked for a moment before actual words came out of it. "Wait. Are you going to grill him right there at the table, over turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes? Is this my punishment? Because I'm pretty sure intentionally humiliating your offspring has been ruled cruel and unusual. The Supreme Court has spoken on this matter."

"This is proof that I'm an extremely cool dad," John corrected. "Your punishment is no Jeep for two weeks except to go to school and back." He thought about it and added, "And training." He really couldn't have Stiles wandering around in a world filled with supernatural nightmares without any preparation.

Stiles slumped in his seat. "That's totally not fair."

John smiled. "That's life, kid."

He slanted a glance at Stiles out of the corner of his eye. He didn't know what it said about him as a parent that he felt warmed through with pride that his kid could face down a bunch of malicious elves with nothing more than the power of his belief. Frankly, he didn't care. His kid was awesome.


End file.
